I am a student facing significant challenges with my IB Chemistry teacher's approach to teaching. Her consistently low grading has raised concerns among many students. Study guides, which are crucial for test and exam preparation, are insufficient. They are often posted just a day or two before tests, leaving us stressed and unprepared.

Additionally, she seldom offers study problems, and when she does, they tend to be too abstract to help us grasp the material. This lack of clear guidance makes it difficult for us to study effectively. Moreover, her teaching style primarily involves going through slides without much interaction or discussion. When we ask questions, she struggles to provide clear answers, often responding with vague statements like “something like that” or saying she will “double check.” This has forced many of us to seek help from outside sources like tutors or online resources.

Furthermore, she frequently makes mistakes on tests and exam papers, such as inaccuracies in the change of enthalpy equation and adding organic chemistry topics to a thermodynamics test. Disturbingly, she has included material on tests and even exams that we have not covered in class, including the Rydberg constant and nitriles, sometimes even topics that more advanced classes haven't learned yet. This lack of accountability affects our learning and self-assessment, leading to confusion and frustration.

Some topics, like uncertainties, have not been taught correctly, which is particularly concerning as understanding these concepts is essential for lab exams and our overall success in the subject. For instance, during our most recent lab exam, the average score for our class was around 20%, with half of the students scoring below that. This is alarming, especially when students in other classes with different teachers were achieving scores of at least double our average.

Compounding this issue, she has demonstrated an inability to accurately input marks. For our midterms, despite some students scoring the same on the test—which was the only assessment for our midterm—they received different converted marks. Disturbingly, some students who performed worse on the test ended up with higher midterm grades than their peers.

This ongoing pattern of low marks and errors in assessment raises questions about the effectiveness of her teaching and the fairness of the evaluations we receive. For example, she was extremely ambiguous about the Paper 2 Exam answers, leaving us with only two minutes to check over the exam—likely to prevent us from identifying all her mistakes. Most students were asking her about the first questions because, according to her, the empirical formula had 14 oxygens when the molecular mass of the compound was only around 200 grams per mole.

In conclusion, her teaching methods and lack of responsibility have negatively impacted our education. We believe that every student deserves quality instruction from qualified teachers. Therefore, we strongly support the reevaluation of Sophia Tan for the benefit of our educational experience. Please sign this petition if you believe we deserve better.